Candle In The Wind
by thelilacfield
Summary: The white marble memorial is a pilgrimage, glowing gold with names of those who lost their lives in the war. A single name is missing. This is the story of how it came to join others. Albus-centric, for Starlit


Candle In The Wind

The white marble rises out of snow, embossed gold shining in the amber light of lanterns. People flood into this little clearing, treating it as a pilgrimage, but, on this one occasion, he is alone.

He watches one of the lanterns swaying back and forth in the biting breeze, its comforting glow flickering. He can read the lettering on the memorial, hundreds of names snaking around it. People have left flowers, most of which have shrivelled up in the cold and notes, carved into rocks or bespelled into snow. He finds the rock James helped him to carve, remembering his brother's smile as they laid it against the base.

That was seven years ago now. He was eleven years old, lonely, scared and wishing he could escape to Hogsmeade like James and Dominique. They broke the rules - they took him with them, under the cover of the invisibility cloak. He drank Madam Rosmerta's world-famous hot chocolate and sent letters from the Post Office. He watched with meagre interest as James exclaimed over colourful packaging and strange names in Zonko's and Dominique squealed and filled her pockets in Honeydukes.

They visited the Shrieking Shack, Dominique hanging back at the door in her usual cowardly way. Albus walked around for hours, avoiding the little notices that give out information about the building. He can piece the story together for himself. He looked at the damage inflicted by Remus Lupin and envied him. How fascinating it must have been to transform into a completely different form every full moon. Now, of course, there are support programmes and Wolfsbane potion supplies, but he thinks he would have liked to be one back then, when there was no solution but to lock yourself away and hope you didn't break out.

Now, he would never wish that. _Be careful what you wish for_ is what he never thought of when he wished on every falling star, every birthday candle, every dandelion seed that he could have a first-hand experience of lycanthropy. He didn't get that, but he got something akin to it. A second-hand experience.

James Sirius Potter, golden boy, Quidditch legend, head boy, top of his class - all the clichés, everything the world expected the son of Harry and Ginevra Potter - nephew of Ron and Hermione Weasley, godson of Neville Longbottom and Luna Scamander, relation to the heroic Weasleys - to be. No one would have expected him, of all people, to be attacked by a werewolf. Perhaps his odd, pale, bookish brother, or his spiky, Slytherin sister, but not him.

But it had happened. Out on an arrest with his colleagues, he'd lost concentration for one moment - no doubt thinking of Jane and their baby - and the werewolf had had no hesitation in pouncing.

He'd been in the middle of a theoretical Charms exam when Dominique had burst in, white as a sheet, eyes rimmed with red, Lily, Lucy and Molly right behind her. She'd pleaded with Professor Knight and the empathetic headmistress had allowed him to leave. He hadn't been expecting Dominique to burst into tears and Lily, ruthlessly in control as always, to tell him James had been killed.

There had been nothing that could be done. Professor Knight, shocked and shaky upon finding out, had given all the Weasley relations still attending the school permission to leave before the end of term. Later, after a long campaign and a good few shouting matches, Lysander and Lorcan Scamander and Scorpius Malfoy had been authorised absence too.

Dominique had taken them to St. Mungo's to find James' body being moved to the morgue. Lily had screamed at the Healer moving him, howling that he had a right to be buried where he'd grown up. Her cool expression had slipped for the first time in six years and she had collapsed, sobbing, into Lucy's arms. The Healer had been terribly understanding and loaded up the body for transportation. The ward where he'd lain was impersonal, reeking of disinfectant. The lights shone brightly on white floors and walls and the bed had been stripped down, leaving bare wood behind.

Their family, extended as far as Dominique's aunt and uncle and their daughter, were still gathered in the corridor outside. Tears stained most faces and their mother was the worst. She still wore green robes marked with the symbol of the Holyhead Harpies, her hair still pulled back neatly, her face soaked in tears. She clung to their father, whose own eyes were glistening with unshed tears. Lily had, for the first time in so long, shown her emotions. Words of sympathy were murmured and the words _if there's anything I can do _made the rounds, but it was all meaningless. James was gone and nothing could bring him back.

Though the family was large and spread out across several countries, no one really knew who to cling to. They all coped in different ways. Dominique - who Albus had always expected had had a more than cousinly relationship with James - had locked herself in her room and cried for hours, never emerging for meals and not touching the trays her mother delivered to her door. Jane - wife and mother of his unborn child - had been in shock and slept away her life, though Victoire sometimes heard crying late at night. Lily - Slytherin mask returned - had comforted people, moving from one grief-stricken family member or friend to the next, her shoulders soaked with other tears. As for Albus, he had thrown himself back into work, filling pages of exam papers with his cramped little writing and sending out an application to take a thesis in Ancient Runes in preparation for a career in magical law.

For all of them, there was shock and denial. How could such a brave man, who took the late Alastor Moody's motto of _constant vigilance _to heart be attacked? It couldn't have been him, it must have been someone who looked like him. Perhaps even someone entirely different but so bruised and bloodied by the attack they had been unrecognisable and his colleagues had jumped to conclusions. But, deep inside, they all knew that James had been an Auror and his colleagues were paid to see everything. They couldn't possibly have mistaken someone else for James.

Then came the funeral. Lily organised it all. She showed a consideration for others hidden before. Knowing how much strain their parents had been under and how distraught everyone was, she'd done everything from booking the venue to choosing the flowers. Sombre in black and grey, they'd filed into pews while the minister spoke of achievements and honours that meant nothing. They did nothing to remind the guests of who James Sirius Potter had been.

Albus saw the body. The polished coffin lay open for a moment before Lily slammed the lid shut and helped Albus, Scorpius and Louis to carry it to the graveyard. James lay still, his face torn and scarred by the werewolf's teeth and claws. The man had since been caught and chained up in Azkaban, but this provided no solace from grief. When Lily had collapsed under the coffin, weeping, Teddy had run forward and pulled her away and Fred had steadied the coffin. Together, the four of them lowered him into his grave.

"He has a lovely view of our house," their mother had said in an oddly high voice. "And he's right next to his grandparents. They'll take care of him." She'd turned away, sobbing into their father's shoulder.

Lily had been sobbing in Teddy's arms and incapable of giving her arranged speech. Taking a deep breath, Albus had stepped onto the podium and made a short speech before reciting a poem that he remembers now.

_Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,_

_Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,_

_Silence the pianos and with muffled drum_

_Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come. _

_Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead_

_Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,_

_Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,_

_Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves. _

_He was my North, my South, my East and West,_

_My working week and my Sunday rest,_

_My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;_

_I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong. _

_The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;_

_Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;_

_Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood _

_For nothing now can ever come to any good._

The flame in the lantern flickers. Albus looks up and shields it with his hands, warming them. He wishes he could have done the same to James. His brother was a candle, burning bright and warming hearts, but he's burnt out now. They failed to shield him from the wind. But small mercies do exist. His legend will burn for year, though his candle is long gone.

Albus turns to the memorial. Familiar names pass across his vision - _Dennis Creevey, Severus Snape, Remus Lupin, Horace Slughorn_ - but none of them are right. There is another who deserves to be remembered as he died in a war, albeit over twenty years later that these others. Albus waves his wand and a new name appears, embossed in gold for centuries more.

_James Sirius Potter - your candle burned out long before your legend ever will._

He smiles slightly to himself and turns away, pulling up his hood to protect against the biting cold. He has to go to Lily's twenty-week scan and later it's little James Harry's first birthday party. He won't miss it for the world.

* * *

><p>Dedicated to Starlit (<strong>Stars And Killjoys<strong>) for sharing a love of _Candle In The Wind_ by Elton John, the soundtrack song for this piece.

Credit to JK Rowling for the characters you recognise, W. H. Auden for his heartbreaking poem _Stop All The Clocks _and to Elton John for that lyric from _Candle In The Wind _I used.

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